Englewood man shares his story at Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Paramus

Robert "Bob" Bennett shared his experience of surviving concentration camps during World War II in front of an audience at Jewish Community Center of Paramus/Congregation Beth Tikvah on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He was only a boy when his world changed forever. He was young enough to still be innocent, but old enough to understand the power of hate.

Born Benno Benczkowski, he lived with his family in the free state of Danzig in Poland pre-World War II. But at age 11, his family was taken by the Nazis. Benczkowski was one of few to escape with his life.

Now in his 80s, the Englewood resident, who goes by Robert "Bob" Bennett, rarely speaks of those years. He made an exception for Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. On April 29, he spoke at a Paramus Bat-Sheva Hadassah meeting at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus/Congregation Beth Tikvah (JCCP/CBT) about his experiences living in a ghetto and surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau and Gross-Rosen concentration camps.

Andrea Zettler, of Paramus Bat-Sheva Hadassah, said every year the group tries to do something to remember the Holocaust, whether it is a survivor story, film or lighting of candles. Hadassah is a volunteer organization that inspires a commitment to the land and people of Israel.

"Human lives are most valuable," Zettler said. "The main important reason for this [Remembrance Day] is that we never forget, because if we forget, it can happen again."

Three memorial candles were lit, one for the Jewish people killed during the Holocaust, one for the non-Jews killed and one for those who hid the Jewish people during World War II.

By the time Bennett and his family were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland in the 1930s, they had already lived in a ghetto and experienced anti-Semitism, he said. But there was still hope that this new destination would be what the Nazis soldiers promised: relocation.

Instead, Bennett found himself having to choose which of his parents to stand with - his mother or father.

"They said they were going to the showers. I knew I couldn't go in with my mother, so I chose my father," he said. He paused but said no more on the topic of his mother and sister, who he last saw through the barbed wire fence.

It's a decision his family said still haunts him.

Bennett, his father and a cousin were the only members of the family to survive. More than 1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz.

Living conditions were harsh. People were stripped of dignity, nutrition, medical care and their belongings. Those who didn't die in the gas chambers, most often succumbed to death due to starvation, forced labor, executions, medical experiments and infectious diseases.

"I survived because of my father," Bennett said.

Despite his young age, his father assured the Nazis that the two of them were fit for labor - carpentry, electrical work, whatever they needed. It wasn't true, Bennett said, but it was their only chance for survival and they caught a break.

The elder Bennett told the officers that his son "has golden hands" and could build anything. Eventually both were selected for labor in a BMW factory in Gorlitz, where the young Bennett spent a year working on airplanes, putting protective linings on the wheels.

After years of living under threat of death, the camp was finally liberated. Bennett and his father headed back home. But the pain of the experience, the loss and the anti-Semitic attitudes that continued led Bennett and his father to realize they needed to start fresh somewhere else.

While waiting for a visa to the United States, Bennett and his father lived in Cuba, where they stayed for five years before gaining access to America.

But Bennett had a hard time getting a job and eventually went into business for himself. He met his wife and they raised a family in the U.S.

Members in attendance at the Hadassah meeting asked how Bennett could survive.

"You have nothing to lose," he explained. "You become a zombie."

In 2011, he returned to Poland with his family, who said it was an important moment for all of them, but especially for Bennett.